The following abbreviations are herewith defined, at least some of which are referred to within the following description.
3GPP Third Generation Partnership Project
4G Fourth Generation
5G Fifth Generation
ANDSF Access Network Discovery and Selection Function
AP Access Point
DL Downlink
eNB Evolved Node B
ETSI European Telecommunications Standards Institute
IP Internet Protocol
ISP Internet Service Provider
LAN Local Area Network
LTE Long Term Evolution
MME Mobility Management Entity
OFDM Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
PGW Packet Data Network Gateway
PLMN Public Land Mobile Network
RAN Radio Access Network
RF Radio Frequency
RRC Radio Resource Control
SC-FDMA Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access
SGW Serving Gateway
UE User Entity/Equipment (Mobile Terminal)
UL Uplink
WAN Wide Area Network
WiMAX Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access
WoL Wake-on-LAN
WoWLAN Wake-on-Wireless LAN
WLAN Wireless Local Area Network
In wireless communications networks, such as a 3GPP Long Term Evolution (“LTE”) wireless communication network, current network architecture supports several procedures for offloading data traffic from the macro radio network. In one procedure, data traffic is offloaded to small cells by using the so-called dual-connectivity solution. In another procedure, data traffic is offloaded to wireless local area network (“WLAN”) access points (“APs”) by using either a core network method (e.g., an Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (“ANDSF”) based WLAN interworking) or a radio network method (e.g., a Radio Access Network (“RAN”) assisted WLAN interworking).
It is anticipated that “green” access points will play a key role in future wireless communication networks (e.g., fifth generation (“5G”) and higher). A green access point (also described as a “green AP”), as used herein, refers to a wireless access node (e.g., a LTE small cell or a WLAN AP) which powers up only when it is needed to carry data traffic. In all other situations, the wireless access node is powered down and does not consume electric power. However, current network architectures do not support data offloading to green access points which remain unpowered until they are needed to carry data traffic.
In general, a green access point may be powered up by several alternative mechanisms. One well-known mechanism is the Ethernet Wake-on-LAN (“WoL”) feature. In Ethernet WoL, the green AP is equipped with an Ethernet interface and is configured to wake up (e.g., to power up) after it receives a special packet, known as a “magic” packet. In some situations, the magic packet is a broadcast frame containing in its payload six bytes of 0xFF followed by sixteen repetitions of the green AP's Media Access Control (“MAC”) address. In this case, the green AP must consume some amount of energy for receiving Ethernet traffic and looking for a magic packet.
Alternatively, the green AP may employ a Wake-on-Wireless LAN (“WoWLAN”) mechanism. The WoWLAN mechanism is essentially the same as the Wake-on-LAN mechanism, but the green AP expects the magic packet from its WLAN interface instead of the Ethernet interface. When using the WoWLAN mechanism, the green AP must keep its WLAN receive circuit active in order to detect the magic packet. Thus, some amount of energy is again consumed.
Other wake-up mechanisms are also known, however, all these mechanisms (including the WoL and WoWLAN, described above) require that the green AP both keep some of its circuitry in operation (thus consuming some energy while being in a “power off” state) and support a special signaling method (e.g. receiving a magic packet) for being woken up.